Cutting down fishery operational costs could mean big profits in the long run.

Despite an eye-watering price tag of approximately $200 billion, the benefits of a concerted effort to restore global fisheries outweigh the costs, according to a new report published in PLoS ONE. The authors claim that such a scheme would pay for itself in 12 years, and see a net gain (if you'll pardon the expression) of up to $1400 billion after 50 years, boosting fishing from a loss-making (when subsidies are considered) to a profit-making industry.

Overfishing can lead to dramatic collapses in fisheries that can have severe knock-on effects for the human communities which have grown dependent upon them. The collapse of the Newfoundland Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) fisheries in the early 1990s forced the Canadian government to place a moratorium on cod fishing which left thousands unemployed. Acute as the Newfoundland case is, it's by no means isolated.

In 2006, a report in the journal Science co-authored by Dalhousie University's Boris Worm, asserted that one-third of the global fisheries had collapsed (defined, somewhat controversially, by fish catches falling to 10 percent of historic levels), and predicted that most fish stocks would collapse by 2048 if the practices of the time were to continue. A 2009 report saw Ray Hilborn (a critic of Worm's 2006 study) join Worm and others in a less damning assessment, which nevertheless concluded that 63 percent of fisheries were in need of rebuilding.

In their new report, Benefits of Rebuilding Global Marine Fisheries Outweigh Costs, an international team of economists and ecologists reiterate a very simple solution: to fish less. But that's neither as cheap nor as simple as it may sound. If, as the report suggests, current global fishing capacity is 2.5 times higher than that required for sustainable levels, 2.6 million (60 percent) of the world's fishing boats will require decommissioning, and between 15 and 22 million (43–63 percent) of the world's fishers will require compensation or retraining. The authors argue that though this may not be a popular choice in all quarters, a managed transition is preferable to having mass unemployment thrust upon the industry. The researchers have calculated the cost of downsizing to be between $130 billion and $292 billion, with a mean of $203 billion. The report additionally calls for an end to $19 billion per year in "harmful and ambiguous subsidies."

To compare the productivity of fisheries before and after rebuilding, the authors compare "resource rent," which is the net profit from fishing after costs and subsidies have been deducted. The proposed measures would transform a negative annual resource rent (i.e. a loss) of $13 billion into a $54 billion profit, resulting in total gains of between $600 billion and $1400 billion over 50 years (between 3 and 7 times the cost).

Though mean annual catch would eventually increase to a mean of 88.7 million tons per year from 80.2 million tons per year today, most of the gains come as a result of the reduced costs of a downsized fishing industry, which would run on only $37 billion in the rebuilt scenario compared to $73 billion today. Overfishing can increase costs because as stocks are depleted, more boats need to be deployed to maintain catch levels. Sustainably fished resources, by contrast, can be harvested more efficiently.

To arrive at these figures, the researchers examined collected data from a variety of economic, scientific, governmental, and non-governmental bodies to build databases of ex-vessel fish prices (which vary according to species, fishing equipment, and location), fishing costs and subsidies. The data was individually compiled into landed values, costs of fishing, labor costs, fishing company earnings, and fisheries subsidies for 144 maritime countries, from which both current and maximum resource rent, wages, and earnings were calculated.

The following maps, taken from the report, suggest a staggering reversal of fortune for some national fishing industries.

Countries that move out of the red and into the gray would see their fisheries become profit-making, according to the report. Less clear from the maps (but obvious from the data on which they are based) are the massive gains that some already profitable countries, such as USA and China, stand to make:

Inevitably, though, there are gaps in the raw data available. "Global studies such as the current one are only estimates because the datasets are never complete and therefore we develop statistical approaches to fill the gaps," the report's co-author Dr. Rashid Sumalia, director of the Fisheries Economics Research Unit at the University of British Columbia, told Ars. "We have made an effort to include the ranges of parameter values reported in the literature as much as possible. This is why we estimate ranges for our numbers."

The report also assumes that all fisheries will recover to a rebuilt state over time, with an assumed universal rebuild time of 10 years (based on Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act). However, Sumalia told Ars that the ranges of possible economic gains account for a range of recovery times, which vary according to species. "Costello et al., cited in our paper, demonstrate that recovery rates for the different taxa they analyzed ranges from 4 to 26 years depending on taxa, for an average of 11 years for the group of taxa they studied," Sumalia told Ars. "We therefore are confident that the combined use of averages and ranges provide strong robustness to our estimates."

The study cited defines a rebuilt fishery as one in which fish stocks achieve equilibrium following an optimized economic fish policy (which doesn't necessarily repopulate fish stocks as fast as possible). Their study is based on 18 hypothetical fisheries, each with a different fish species.

These latest findings would seem to be backed up by analysis of actual fish stocks that have become subject to management with a view to recovery. Even those hardest hit, such as Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, are showing signs of recovery some twenty years on. In 2010 the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization stated that the Grand Banks cod stocks southeast of Newfoundland had grown by 69 percent between 2007 and 2010 (although the 2010 stocks were still only at 10 percent of the levels of the 1960s).

The rebuilding of fisheries is not without its challenges. But far from being a bitter pill that the industry will eventually have to swallow for its long-term survival, this latest research would seem to suggest the process is an economic no-brainer.

Oceanic fisheries represent what economists call a Tragedy of the Commons. No individual fisher or individual country benefits from restraining their catch to sustainable levels. Getting all nations, and all fishing fleets on board is a very difficult problem. It is currently worsened because the United States which might exert a leadership role in negotiating agreements on sustainable catch, is paralyzed by the current political atmosphere. Basically, any international agreement will be greeted by complaints that it represents a United Nations plot to implement one world government. Say bye-bye ocean fisheries!

Sadly, I doubt anyone beyond the scientists and environmentally conscious people reading these papers is going to listen or act.I expect wholesale collapse of fisheries to occur with little or no substantive action. We were warned, in Canada, for more than a decade and actually increased catches until the collapse. The pressure from the industry, at all levels, politicises the implementation of limits and prevents any realistic action. People want their fish ($) now and to hell with the future.

This is already happening on a grand scale. Russia in particular is finally starting to understand the benefits of doing things right. My company and our partnered sustainable fishing NGO's have worked with Russian salmon farmers to adopt sustainable practices, open their books (much harder than you can imagine), and reap the benefits of a higher priced product sold legally and sustainably.

One particular salmon fishery that we wanted to purchase product from was so poorly managed, that Russians would park front-end loaders in the river and simply scoop returning salmon up by the truckload for processing. Fast forward a couple years and a ton of work later, and that same fishery is now undergoing MSC approval and once completed we'll be able to buy from them.

This didn't require the work of environmental organizations, governments, activism, or public uproar. Seafood companies realize that their future lies in sustainably sourced product. We don't exist if there's no seafood left to sell.

Most parts of the world have started to heavily adopt these practices, with the exception of Africa (terrible), and some Asian countries (Japanese whalers, anybody doing shark finning).

Sadly, I doubt anyone beyond the scientists and environmentally conscious people reading these papers is going to listen or act.I expect wholesale collapse of fisheries to occur with little or no substantive action. We were warned, in Canada, for more than a decade and actually increased catches until the collapse. The pressure from the industry, at all levels, politicises the implementation of limits and prevents any realistic action. People want their fish ($) now and to hell with the future.

Luckily you are very wrong. Governments are the lagards. It's the corporations that are making the changes and lobbying governments worldwide to crack down on IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated) fishing. Corporations are supporting rebuilding efforts by cycling billions to NGO's that do just that (http://www.sustainablefish.org/ is a great example). It's easy to be cynical about corporations since you hear so many bad things about oil/media/telecom groups, but I'm dead confident that big seafood corporations have the right goal in mind. It's the little illegal guys that are causing the problems and need to be sent overboard.

Put unemployed fishermen to work as fisheries patrols (i.e. coast guard auxiliary) and environmental remediation of estuaries and wetlands? Keeps the local economies from crashing before fishing can return, and leads to stronger fisheries when they do. Requires a lot of national support, though...

Put unemployed fishermen to work as fisheries patrols (i.e. coast guard auxiliary) and environmental remediation of estuaries and wetlands? Keeps the local economies from crashing before fishing can return, and leads to stronger fisheries when they do. Requires a lot of national support, though...

That's a lot of the problem. Many countries are on the right track in terms of policy, but lack the resources to back it up. Laws don't stop illegal fishing. Armed intervention does. Australia specifically puts tons of resources towards enforcement, largely due to their location next to many poor and less regulated nations. Caught fishing illegally in Australian waters? First shot is across the bow, whereupon you must stop all activity and prepare for boarding/arrest. Noncompliance results in a second shot which sinks your vessel.

anyone else think it's weird that fish are the last protein type that we literally still hunt, while beef, chicken, pork, etc. are all reared and harvested?

Most science estimates that with proper management, oceans/lakes can sustainably produce approx 90m metric tonnes of seafood annually. Global consumption today is over 140m metric tonnes. Aquaculture (farmed) is growing rapidly and will overtake wild caught product by 2020. Aquaculture is far more difficult than raising pigs, but we're getting damn good at it. Also consider that we only mass-farm only a dozen or so land animals worldwide, but we're farming hundreds if not thousands of species of seafood in far more dynamic environments. There's a lot of science required to do it, and do it right, across an exponentially larger playing field.

I sincerely hope you are right. I didn't mean to impune corporations by my comment. I'm well aware of the pressure from small operators to extend catches. This was a major factor in the situation in Canada. The locals were a significant political force influencing politicians seeking reelection, as well as general ignorance and a "let's ignore the scientists" attitude.Corporations seem the most likely group able to resist that political pressure.Once again, I hope you're right or else "Say bye-bye ocean fisheries!"

If, as the report suggests, current global fishing capacity is 2.5 times higher than that required for sustainable levels, 2.6 million (60 percent) of the world's fishing boats will require decommissioning, and between 15 and 22 million (43–63 percent) of the world's fishers will require compensation or retraining. The authors argue that though this may not be a popular choice in all quarters, a managed transition is preferable to having mass unemployment thrust upon the industry. The researchers have calculated the cost of downsizing to be between $130 billion and $292 billion, with a mean of $203 billion. The report additionally calls for an end to $19 billion per year in "harmful and ambiguous subsidies."

So basically we have a choice between involuntary unemployment due to collapse or (in)voluntary unemployment to allow rehabilitation. As an outsider the choice seems obvious to me but it wouldn't surprise me if a few fisherman would rather get what they can while they can and tell people off while doing it. At least we have the luxury to reduce fishing by choice if most people are willing...

Oceanic fisheries represent what economists call a Tragedy of the Commons. No individual fisher or individual country benefits from restraining their catch to sustainable levels. Getting all nations, and all fishing fleets on board is a very difficult problem. It is currently worsened because the United States which might exert a leadership role in negotiating agreements on sustainable catch, is paralyzed by the current political atmosphere. Basically, any international agreement will be greeted by complaints that it represents a United Nations plot to implement one world government. Say bye-bye ocean fisheries!

And even if we lead the way, and an international agreement is forged, it just takes one nation to notice that by opting out, they can reap the benefits of everyone else's sacrifices, without making any sacrifices of their own.

Could be a decision not to pass law, could be a decision not to enforce laws, could also be a decision by individual fishermen to cheat if enforcement is not effective enough.

Of course any international agreement that comes with strong enforcement terms is going to sound even more like One World Government....

Don't wait for the government. As a consumer, simply ensure you always purchase sustainable seafood, and charge your friends and neighbours to do so as well. Canadians are way ahead of the curve internationally, and industry has moved to match. McDonald's, Wal-Mart, Loblaws, Costco, and a number of large producers are committed to or are already sourcing 100% certified sustainable seafood, damn the government. It's good for business, and it's good for the longevity of the industry.

We lobby CFIA constantly to increase regulations and enforce current regulations, yet our suggestions get put on the backburner or turned down entirely because it costs too much to implement. Smaller competitors (usually very liquid importers with little to lose) are getting away with all kinds of ludicrous crap because the oversight isn't there. We do it because we're a bigger company and we're concerned about meeting our long-term needs and because we've adopted a strong ethical vision as a company that we intend to adhere to, while making the "right thing to do" profitable.

Funny this comes just after a documentary aired last night about our fishing industry here in New Zealand. While we do operate on a optimal catch program the documentary said that Russian and Korean vessels (contracted by NZ companies) fish over their quota and dump it later. The local fishers say that this process has destroyed certain fish stock.

Sadly, I doubt anyone beyond the scientists and environmentally conscious people reading these papers is going to listen or act.I expect wholesale collapse of fisheries to occur with little or no substantive action. We were warned, in Canada, for more than a decade and actually increased catches until the collapse. The pressure from the industry, at all levels, politicises the implementation of limits and prevents any realistic action. People want their fish ($) now and to hell with the future.

Luckily you are very wrong. Governments are the lagards. It's the corporations that are making the changes and lobbying governments worldwide to crack down on IUU (illegal, unreported, unregulated) fishing. Corporations are supporting rebuilding efforts by cycling billions to NGO's that do just that (http://www.sustainablefish.org/ is a great example). It's easy to be cynical about corporations since you hear so many bad things about oil/media/telecom groups, but I'm dead confident that big seafood corporations have the right goal in mind. It's the little illegal guys that are causing the problems and need to be sent overboard.

I don't suppose you and your NGO friends could speak with the open pen salmon farmers that are working in Nova Scotia. It seems that they are not managing their resource properly as the fish are being destroyed because of sea lice, there are also complaints of the farms destroying the bottoms of the bays they are in.

Well, it was cheaper to let the fish care for itself until you want to eat it.

Offset, however, by the cost of sending people out in boats to catch them.

Those fishies don't exactly come when you whistle and jump into your frying pan!

They do if you train them. But that trick only works once and then you have to find another fish. Very time consuming.

Seriously though, I would think that re-employing fishermen as the patrollers of the fisheries could be an effective means of enforcement as long as there is some oversight to eliminate bribery. But they know the areas, they know the boats, and they know who is most likely to be pushing the limits.

But yeah, sustainable food is hard, but if there aren't steps taken there is going to be an awful lot of disappointment when the fishermen AND a large portion of the population go hungry (that is a huge amount of food to source elsewhere).

I don't suppose you and your NGO friends could speak with the open pen salmon farmers that are working in Nova Scotia. It seems that they are not managing their resource properly as the fish are being destroyed because of sea lice, there are also complaints of the farms destroying the bottoms of the bays they are in.

We don't source any Canadian Atlantic Salmon. We currently source Chilean Atlantic, and their farms are some of the most advanced in the world. There have been anemia outbreaks, but lice is a non-issue now. Benthic (sea floor) biodiversity is a rapidly emerging field and the Chileans are good at managing it. They now often farm mussels under the salmon farms as the salmon waste feeds the mussels, who filter it out and leave the ocean floor in great shape. Canada has a significant mussel industry so I would hope they would merge the two geographically for mutual gain, and start following other best-practices. Norway also has a significant Atlantic Salmon farming industry and also uses many of the same techniques as Chile with great results.

There is an incredible amount of effort ongoing to restore Canadian fisheries, and all indications point to a significant rebound (as mentioned in the article), which hopefully leads to a return to managed commercial fishing in the future, which would be a huge boon for the entire eastern economy. Our aquaculture isn't as advanced as it could be though, as you highlighted.

Well, it was cheaper to let the fish care for itself until you want to eat it.

Offset, however, by the cost of sending people out in boats to catch them.

Those fishies don't exactly come when you whistle and jump into your frying pan!

They do if you train them. But that trick only works once and then you have to find another fish. Very time consuming.

Seriously though, I would think that re-employing fishermen as the patrollers of the fisheries could be an effective means of enforcement as long as there is some oversight to eliminate bribery. But they know the areas, they know the boats, and they know who is most likely to be pushing the limits.

But yeah, sustainable food is hard, but if there aren't steps taken there is going to be an awful lot of disappointment when the fishermen AND a large portion of the population go hungry (that is a huge amount of food to source elsewhere).

Folks who tattle get ostracized by the community. Vandalism, destroyed boats, harassment, and threats of violence are not uncommon in fishing communities. This is a big reason why the little IUU guys don't get caught - they are protected by the community, for better or worse.

Sorry lost cause, a vast majority of the world's fisheries are already in a state of failure. The oceans are turning acidic and jellyfish are taking over.

The only solution at this point is massive investment in artificial breeding and genetic manipulation of new species that can survive the higher PH, chemical laden, algae infused waters, we humans have wrought upon the earth's once pristine oceans.

....on the other hand, patrolling the world's oceans is yet another great opportunity for DRONES.

The problem is current capitalism and catch allocation. How you do you implement who gets to catch what in this world?

You allow ocean to be homesteaded and thereby owned. Because it's illegal to own any area of ocean, we don't see sea aquaculture on anything approaching a large scale.If ownership was legalized, farms (creating sustainable fisheries) would crowd out those who hunt fish across the oceans.

We would also see innovations being developed ensuring property rights can be maintained (i.e. barbed wire invented when large parcels of land were declared homesteadable).

anyone else think it's weird that fish are the last protein type that we literally still hunt, while beef, chicken, pork, etc. are all reared and harvested?

Most science estimates that with proper management, oceans/lakes can sustainably produce approx 90m metric tonnes of seafood annually. Global consumption today is over 140m metric tonnes. Aquaculture (farmed) is growing rapidly and will overtake wild caught product by 2020. Aquaculture is far more difficult than raising pigs, but we're getting damn good at it. Also consider that we only mass-farm only a dozen or so land animals worldwide, but we're farming hundreds if not thousands of species of seafood in far more dynamic environments. There's a lot of science required to do it, and do it right, across an exponentially larger playing field.

Great points. I've been a saltwater aquarist for a few years and strictly deal with aqua cultured corals and animals, I love to dive and hate to see the seas harvested beyond their limits. From what I understand there has been a host of successful farming of salmon, barramundi, and tilapia, yes? I think as the aqua farming science improves market conditions will make those operations profitable (just wait until they get the right pieces for tuna farming). Your point to the mussels and other mollusks filtering out detritus is exactly the kind of simple natural solutions hobbyist aquarists search for all the time, when those types of solutions are successful on a large scale you can't help but feel like progress is being made. However, I feel like history has a nasty habit of repeating itself and unless we get behind aqua farming a bit more we're bound to make the same mistakes.

anyone else think it's weird that fish are the last protein type that we literally still hunt, while beef, chicken, pork, etc. are all reared and harvested?

It's even more weird that the fish we eat is at the wrong end of the food chain. Our most prized fish like tuna, flake (shark) and sword fish are carnivores. It's like eating lions, tigers and eagles instead of cattle, buffalo and chicken. To say that's it's energy inefficient is an understatement.

On the other hand farmed fish, like Basa, are often raised on plant based foods. Economics forces things that way, because it is cheaper.

The sea is capable of producing huge amounts of food, but as this point shows we have a long, long way to go before we get there. Interestingly whales are the closest things we have to the cattle of the sea. They are large, and some species very low down on the food chain as they eat plankton.

We don't source any Canadian Atlantic Salmon. We currently source Chilean Atlantic, and their farms are some of the most advanced in the world. There have been anemia outbreaks, but lice is a non-issue now. Benthic (sea floor) biodiversity is a rapidly emerging field and the Chileans are good at managing it. They now often farm mussels under the salmon farms as the salmon waste feeds the mussels, who filter it out and leave the ocean floor in great shape. Canada has a significant mussel industry so I would hope they would merge the two geographically for mutual gain, and start following other best-practices. Norway also has a significant Atlantic Salmon farming industry and also uses many of the same techniques as Chile with great results..

I've heard to the contrary. I remember a National Geographic article showing how the fish farms were destroying fjords and just moving on, ever further southward. Your information is likely more current than my limited reading on the matter though, so hopefully they have got their act together.

Here's an article from 2010, in Science Daily, on the issue (reporting on a paper which made it into Nature): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 112558.htm. Here's a quote: "The salmon farms also incur other negative effects on the ecosystem: large volumes of excess feed for the farmed fish and their faeces can be seen floating in the water, and the crowded conditions under which the salmon are kept necessitate the use of medication and pesticides. Measurements taken by other participants in the Göttingen researcher's expedition prove that no forms of life now exist in direct proximity to the farms. "The air there smells like bleach," says Vester."

Sorry lost cause, a vast majority of the world's fisheries are already in a state of failure. The oceans are turning acidic and jellyfish are taking over.

The only solution at this point is massive investment in artificial breeding and genetic manipulation of new species that can survive the higher PH, chemical laden, algae infused waters, we humans have wrought upon the earth's once pristine oceans.

....on the other hand, patrolling the world's oceans is yet another great opportunity for DRONES.

Not a lost cause, but acidification and oxygen depletion (which is when jellyfish take over) is a real problem that I don't know a whole lot about. No point blaming humans yet though because the science doesn't fully back that up yet, although we are likely at least partly to blame in some manner. For all we know, we could be slowing a naturally occurring acidification. There's a lot going on underwater all the time and we witness/monitor a pathetically small fraction of it.

We don't source any Canadian Atlantic Salmon. We currently source Chilean Atlantic, and their farms are some of the most advanced in the world. There have been anemia outbreaks, but lice is a non-issue now. Benthic (sea floor) biodiversity is a rapidly emerging field and the Chileans are good at managing it. They now often farm mussels under the salmon farms as the salmon waste feeds the mussels, who filter it out and leave the ocean floor in great shape. Canada has a significant mussel industry so I would hope they would merge the two geographically for mutual gain, and start following other best-practices. Norway also has a significant Atlantic Salmon farming industry and also uses many of the same techniques as Chile with great results..

I've heard to the contrary. I remember a National Geographic article showing how the fish farms were destroying fjords and just moving on, ever further southward. Your information is likely more current than my limited reading on the matter though, so hopefully they have got their act together.

Here's an article from 2010, in Science Daily, on the issue (reporting on a paper which made it into Nature): http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 112558.htm. Here's a quote: "The salmon farms also incur other negative effects on the ecosystem: large volumes of excess feed for the farmed fish and their faeces can be seen floating in the water, and the crowded conditions under which the salmon are kept necessitate the use of medication and pesticides. Measurements taken by other participants in the Göttingen researcher's expedition prove that no forms of life now exist in direct proximity to the farms. "The air there smells like bleach," says Vester."

That's a good read. Aquaculture ain't perfect by any means, but we're getting better at it. I can assure you there's an incredible amount of science going into making it even better, but it takes time to determine impacts and then alter the process. I'd like to point out that research can and will make aquaculture safe and viable, but no amount of science will make deforestation for crops environmentally friendly.

Put unemployed fishermen to work as fisheries patrols (i.e. coast guard auxiliary) and environmental remediation of estuaries and wetlands? Keeps the local economies from crashing before fishing can return, and leads to stronger fisheries when they do. Requires a lot of national support, though...

That's a lot of the problem. Many countries are on the right track in terms of policy, but lack the resources to back it up. Laws don't stop illegal fishing. Armed intervention does. Australia specifically puts tons of resources towards enforcement, largely due to their location next to many poor and less regulated nations. Caught fishing illegally in Australian waters? First shot is across the bow, whereupon you must stop all activity and prepare for boarding/arrest. Noncompliance results in a second shot which sinks your vessel.

Put unemployed fishermen to work as fisheries patrols (i.e. coast guard auxiliary) and environmental remediation of estuaries and wetlands? Keeps the local economies from crashing before fishing can return, and leads to stronger fisheries when they do. Requires a lot of national support, though...

That's a lot of the problem. Many countries are on the right track in terms of policy, but lack the resources to back it up. Laws don't stop illegal fishing. Armed intervention does. Australia specifically puts tons of resources towards enforcement, largely due to their location next to many poor and less regulated nations. Caught fishing illegally in Australian waters? First shot is across the bow, whereupon you must stop all activity and prepare for boarding/arrest. Noncompliance results in a second shot which sinks your vessel.

No it doesn't. Sounds all macho and Ramboesque which goes across well in internet forums, but non-compliance results in your vessel being boarded and then confiscated, possible criminal charges against the crew, the boat owner and (if relevant) the contractor. It may also result in fishing licenses being revoked and bans on future license grants.

I may well have been misinformed. I'm simply reiterating what I hear. My sources assured me that foreign pirate vessels caught fishing in Australian waters are dealt with in the most strict manner, as anything less than that would result in a flood of illegal fishing vessels taking advantage of lax enforcement. Your comment tells me that you're specifically talking about licensed fishing boats that care about laws and regulations, and I'm talking about criminals who almost definitely have no licenses, contractors, and shady boat ownership if it's registered at all.

Most parts of the world have started to heavily adopt these practices, with the exception of Africa (terrible), and some Asian countries (Japanese whalers, anybody doing shark finning).

Nothing wrong with whaling... it's done in Norway too, and Iceland. The whale stocks being harvested are large and healthy, and e.g. Norway is in general among the best in the world for managing fish stock so they're expected to do the same for whaling.

Unfortunately, the Free Willy films etc. has led the International Whaling Commission to be against whaling on the basis of "they look cute!". It is no longer seeking to optimize the harvest - some recent members are even landlocked and have never done any whaling, but was induced to join by anti-whalers. Thus, there is no credible International body anymore.

Most parts of the world have started to heavily adopt these practices, with the exception of Africa (terrible), and some Asian countries (Japanese whalers, anybody doing shark finning).

Nothing wrong with whaling... it's done in Norway too, and Iceland. The whale stocks being harvested are large and healthy, and e.g. Norway is in general among the best in the world for managing fish stock so they're expected to do the same for whaling.

Unfortunately, the Free Willy films etc. has led the International Whaling Commission to be against whaling on the basis of "they look cute!". It is no longer seeking to optimize the harvest - some recent members are even landlocked and have never done any whaling, but was induced to join by anti-whalers. Thus, there is no credible International body anymore.

Most of the world finds whaling abhorrent. Hopefully Greenpeace makes it way to Norway in time. It doesn't help that norway is living on borrowed time, even the oil is starting to run out, the fisheries will be sucked dry.

Efficiency and sustainability are really the only way forward in many different walks of life. Unfortunately, this is how I know it will never happen. Why? Greed.

Why doesn't anything ever get done in politics or world affairs? Greed. It seems that the good of all the people can be easily outweighed by the minority pouting the loudest. Why will this never happen? Because it will make more money and be better for the planet in the long run? No. Greed is the reason. Countries won't want to support all the fisherman out of business, even if they could pay those fisherman's salaries 10 times over with the proposed savings from such a sustainable system.

It's okay.. only after the last river is poisoned and after the last fish is caught will we all realize money can't be eaten.

Not a lost cause, but acidification and oxygen depletion (which is when jellyfish take over) is a real problem that I don't know a whole lot about. No point blaming humans yet though because the science doesn't fully back that up yet, although we are likely at least partly to blame in some manner. For all we know, we could be slowing a naturally occurring acidification. There's a lot going on underwater all the time and we witness/monitor a pathetically small fraction of it.